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REPORT 



TO 



PARK BOARD 



NEW YORK CITY 



OF 



SAMUEL PARSONS, Landscape Architect, 



ON 



VISIT TO EUROPEAN PARKS 



1906 



New York: 

Martin B. Brown Company, Printers, 

Nos. 49 to 57 Park Place. 

1907. 



(jo66aG) 






THE CITY OF NEW YORK 

DEPARTMENT OF PARKS 

THE ARSENAL, CENTRAL PARK 



Samuel Parsons, 

Landscape Architect. 



JANUARY 15, 1907. 
To the Honorable Park Board of New York City. 

Gentlemen — Feeling the importance of. securing from time 
to time the fullest and latest information concerning parks and 
their development in foreign countries, and having been author- 
ized by your Board to make investigations in Europe during the 
past summer, I sailed for Antwerp on July 7, 1906, for an ab- 
sence of seven weeks. 

During this tour, through the courtesy of various Park Di- 
rectors, such as the Herren Fintelman and Eitner of Potsdam, 
Herren Bouche and Ledien of Dresden, Herr Lauche of Mus- 
kau, and many other managers of different parks and estates, 
I was able to make a specially satisfactory examination of parks 
in Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria, Italy, France and Eng- 
land. 

Without undertaking to compare individual parks, which 
might seem invidious and quite possibly unjust, on account of 
peculiar conditions and limitations which could not be properly 
appreciated because of lack of time, I will present a few observa- 
tions and reflections that presented themselves during the course 
of the journey. 



One of the things that impresses one throughout the Continent 
and Great Britain is the large size of the trees compared to those 
we are accustomed to see in the parks and estates of this coun- 
try. On investigating the causes that contribute to this superi- 
ority it becomes evident that we are ever apt in America to give 
too much credit to the equable and favorable climate of Europe, 
although this does, without question, make greatly for health 
and vigor ; but the more one examines the question the more one 
comes to feel that in Europe people really care more for trees 
than they do here, and that consequently they display a more 
intelligent and persistent skill in their management from their 
first planting to their death. This is true of all classes of society, 
from the humblest cottage dweller to the richest nobleman. 

We think we love trees and flowers in America, and we do 
increasingly love and cultivate them, but we can hardly realize 
the extent of the regard in which trees and flowers are held 
throughout Europe, and the great effect it has on their superior 
development. For one thing, trees in Europe, judging from vis- 
its made to different nurseries, both on the Continent and in 
Great Britain, are more carefully selected. Crooked and weakly 
plants are thrown away ; the remaining ones are carefully trained 
to stakes, frequently transplanted, and above all, the soil is cul- 
tivated and kept free from weeds to a degree seldom found in 
America. There is an incessant, one would almost say an un- 
conscious effort in watering, pruning, fertilizing, manurings and 
employing other horticultural devices. No person competent to 
judge can deny that we have fine shade and ornamental trees 
in this country ; but all the same, after a careful consideration 
of the question I am satisfied that the credit for superiority will 
have to be awarded to Europe. Nor is it only that the quality 
and size of cultivated trees are better in Europe ; the roads, too, 

; 1 1910 



are better constructed and maintained, the turf is richer and less 
disfigured with weeds, and the foliage generally is healthier 
and more vigorous. All this is largely because the work is done 
regularly and skilfully, and is followed up with a better system 
of management. Everywhere, in every spot, better order pre- 
vails. The grass is watered, the fences are in order, the trees 
are pruned, sometimes, indeed, too much for beauty; piles of 
rubbish are banished, and weeds become conspicuous by their 
absence. One feels as he looks on it all an instinctive shame 
that the maintenance of our American parks, and especially some 
of those in New York, is not better. 

Yet when we have acknowledged the great superiority of 
foreign park maintenance, we may turn with reviving self-respect 
and pride to consider ideas and designs which characterize the 
most important American parks. Modern park designs in Eu- 
rope are apt to present, with a few exceptions, a curious mixture 
of the formal or artificial with the natural style of treatment. 
A hundred years ago the natural style, which yields the various 
sensations caused by the wind-swept hill, the high open meadow, 
the peaceful glade and the sunny lawn enclosed in wooded groves, 
obtained general recognition and sway in Europe. Attaining 
popularity in a marked degree with the appearance of the work 
of Repton at the beginning of the last century, and shortly after- 
wards in Germany with that of Prince Puckler and Messrs. 
Lenne and Meyer, and members of their school, it rapidly ex- 
tended all over Europe and America, even including finally the 
shores of the Mediterranean, the home of the formal and arti- 
ficial Italian villa and Spanish or Moorish terrace. 

But old habits and customs adhere and cling in the minds of 
men long after later ideas have generally prevailed, and though 
now it is the general rule in Europe to use the natural style 



4 

in designing parks, yet often we find the old ideas persisting. 
Spots of formal plan, that have no proper relation whatever to 
beautiful open meadows and wooded glades, thrust their fantas- 
tic and geometric curves and straight lines over fair stretches 
of turf like discords in the harmonies of a pastoral symphony. 
Italian villas one respects for the fine dignity of their architectural 
lines, and the homely spirit with which they animate the slopes 
of the Apennine Hills. They are fitted to the conditions of the 
region and people in which they have slowly grown into being. 
Much the same criticism may be applied with equal truth to the 
older types of the landscape gardening of the cities and coun- 
tries of France. They have perhaps less inherent charm than 
the Italian villas, and are less fitted to the spots where they ex- 
ist, but they are, nevertheless, great works of art that no devotee 
of landscape gardening can afford to spare. 

But what shall we say of these well-designed excellent parks 
to be seen in various parts of Europe where the clear beautiful 
note, creating sensations of nature, peace, vigor, restfulness or 
quiet charm, is obscured or obliterated by beds of red and yel- 
low tropical plants and variegated freaks and sports of native 
trees? If it is desired to have splendid exhibitions of these trop- 
ical or brilliant color effects, and they are entirely proper demon- 
strations when well placed, as they are in the Plaza in front of 
the Emperor's Palace at Potsdam, why not limit them to similar 
spots and prevent them from defacing the fair surface of some 
of the finest parks in the world ? 

In this country we sin frequently in the same way, but, be 
it said to the honor of the New York parks that this false art 
appears little within their boundaries. Doubtless the fact that 
we had attempted little or nothing of park design before those 
great landscape architects, Olmstead and Vaux, came to practice 



5 

their art in Central and Prospect Parks, made it possible for us 
to begin on the right path. Indeed, it is hard to find anywhere 
in Europe a purer example of the natural style than in the parks 
of New York. In order to realize more fully how good is their 
constructive art, it may not be uninteresting to consider in con- 
nection with them the character of one of the great parks of 
Europe and one that has remained for generations an unsullied 
and purely natural park. 

This treasure may be found in Silesia, Germany, at a place 
called Muskau, where nearly one hundred years ago a great de- 
signer of parks, Prince Puckler, transformed an estate of several 
thousand acres, inherited from a long line of ancestors, into a 
great creation of landscape art. 

Prince Puckler worked on the improvement of this estate 
for half a lifetime with the greatest sympathy, and broad, as 
well as intelligent comprehension of its special landscape char- 
acter and the results which should be attained by its development 
in the right way. 

The greater extent and larger features of river, lake and hill- 
top of Muskau gave it originally an incontestable advantage over 
the smaller areas of the New York parks, although we may 
except perhaps the noble natural beauties and distant views of 
Van Cortl'xndt and Pelham Parks in the Bronx Borough, and 
of Prospect Park, Brooklyn. But when we come to consider 
the details of Muskau and stand in the presence of magnificent 
trees, worthy to be painted by Constable, of fine grasses that 
clothe the ground with green sward, of roads well constructed, 
and therefore easily kept in order, of waters with shores clean 
and clothed with shrubs and grass, that the superiority of Mus- 
kau at once impresses the American visitor. 



Muskau, while it is not maintained in as great perfection as 
some Berlin and Paris parks, is still kept in good order, and is 
so intelligently reconstructed or renovated from year to year, 
that its condition always remains satisfactory; all the more so, 
perhaps, because its good order is not obtrusive. Any one vis- 
iting the large nursery of Muskau Park, established in chief part 
for the purpose of refilling the ranks of park plantation, mem- 
bers of which have been blown down or have died, or have been 
cut down to relieve the pressure of crowded conditions, will re- 
alize the amount of scientific forethought which is expended on 
this beautiful place. 

With all deference to the art of American parks it is evident, 
therefore, that in the presence of one of the most economically 
kept and yet most beautiful parks in Europe, the poor mainte- 
nance of the New York parks becomes all the more inexcus- 
able. The spirit of American progress is so impatient, so de- 
termined to achieve rapid and astonishing results, that it under- 
values in its quest of new worlds to conquer the paramount need 
of adequate maintenance. Consequently, while it is not difficult 
to secure millions to build new parks in New York, it is well 
nigh impossible to persuade the authorities to appropriate the 
few thousands extra to properly maintain these parks when fin- 
ished. Many reasons may doubtless be given why this state of 
things is allowed to exist; the fact remains that we build many 
parks and do not take care of them. But while the German and 
the Frenchman and the Englishman are now building fewer 
parks, they carefully and intelligently maintain those they have, 
nor is this all. Neglect begets neglect, and decay seizes hold of 
the park neglected, year by year, with incalculable and fast mul- 
tiplying vigor. Hundreds and thousands of trees die ; and this 
is not the end of it, for frequently the loss injures or destroys 



the picture planned at that particular point by the landscape archi- 
tect. It becomes a little startling- when we look at the question 
in this way, and realize that even after we have seriously under- 
taken to re-establish original conditions we shall probably have 
to wait twenty years to see the complete restoration of the normal 
effect, and the worst of it all is that this decadence has been going 
on for at least twenty years with very little attempt to check it. 
Probably in another twenty years, unless comparatively large 
sums of money and great intelligence are used by those dealing 
with the restoration of the New York parks, they will become dis- 
graceful wastes, that no New Yorker will want to show to vis- 
itors from abroad. He can only say, we once had beautiful 
parks, but through the neglect of many successive governments, 
they have come to be such places as you see. It is only fair to 
say, however, that a good beginning, particularly in Brooklyn, 
has been made in the New York parks in the work of restoring 
the quality of the soil and plantations. 

There can be no question that the citizens of New York are 
proud of their parks, but it is to be feared that few of them re- 
alize how precious they are. The beautiful Babelsburg Park in 
Potsdam I found in a condition not unlike that of the New York 
parks. Many years ago it was greatly improved, and in fact 
laid out anew under the fostering influence of Prince Puckler 
Von Muskau, and now it presents the most charming effects of 
the natural landscape type — distant views, wooded hillsides and 
glades, and open lawns which recall our parks in the Bronx Bor- 
ough of New York. But like the New York parks, for some in- 
explicable reason, Babelsburg has been allowed to lapse into 
considerable decay. The walks and roads are grass-grown and 
the water is run out of the lake. Some day, however, when this 
neglect becomes evident in the proper quarter, we shall find that, 



in no long time all this will be restored to its original beauty ; for 
Berlin is not in this respect like New York. The habit of the 
authorities is to maintain everything well, and the parks are, in 
most cases, kept beautifully. This will make its restoration easy, 
when it is once determined to undertake the work. It is other- 
wise in New York. We shall have more to do to restore our 
parks to their original beauty, and if it is to be done successfully, 
it will be a long and serious undertaking. 

This will require no spasmodic action, but an intelligent, sys- 
tematic and prolonged expenditure of money. The neglect of a 
score of years cannot be redeemed in a season, although much 
may be done by skill and activity. Rich soil or mold, manure, 
sod, trees, shrubs, vines, better fences, cleaner water-ways will 
have to be secured and developed to their fullest extent, or New 
York parks will become a byword for bad conditions. At the 
present time, to the unobserving visitor, there is perhaps not a 
great deal at first sight to call attention to these really serious 
defects in our parks. The steps of decay are insidious, and rap- 
idly advance until the dilapidated conditions are clearly evident 
to all. Even to-day one may readily see by the briefest examin- 
ation, that the dead and dying trees are numerous, that 
soil has been unduly washed away from around their roots, that 
in some places they are crowded and need thinning out, while 
in others new trees should be planted to restore the effect of 
those that are gone. In a word, fresh, rich soil, manure, sods, 
trees, shrubs and vines are needed everywhere if this too evident 
decay is to be arrested. 

In recalling the various reflections that result from a tour of 
a number of the European parks, one is impressed with the fact 
that for purity of design and natural beauty unmarred by arti- 
ficial flower beds set in places improperly adjusted to the gen- 



eral landscape scheme, New York parks are the superiors of 
those of Europe; but in the work of the skilled horticulturist, 
both in construction and maintenance, we have a great deal to 
learn from the study of foreign models. 

Thanking your Honorable Board for affording me the oppor- 
tunity of giving so much time to the study of these foreign park 
models, and hoping that the few brief notes and comparisons that 
I have presented will not be devoid of interest and food for 
thought, I beg to subscribe myself, 

Respectfully, 

Samuel Parsons, 

Landscape Architect. 



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